Bare Foot Prophet

Bare Foot Prophet was a programme of practice-led research instigated by a critique of ‘Artists as Prophet: a secret history of modern art 1872-1972’, staged at the Shirn Kunstalle Frankfurt, Germany, which explored the artist prophets of modernising Germany and their envisioning of the political turmoil of their time.
Shepherd’s exhibition in London (May-June 2015) of nine paintings was informed by the German period of modernisation, as well as contemporary crises of environmental regeneration, and a desire that contemporary painting might act as oracle. Consistent with Shepherd’s habitual methodologies, surreal and magical techniques were used to generate imagery, the act of painting was intuitive, motivated at times by a sense of derangement, with a desire that the outcomes might act as clairvoyance, that the future could be seen.
The imagery generated presaged the political and social turmoil that the United Kingdom was to find itself in with the EU referendum called in autumn 2015. The ongoing insights generated from this work ask questions concerning creative foresight, coincidence and intuitive making.
The enquiry was augmented by public gallery discussions between the artist, Dr Gavin Parkinson and gallery director Zavier Ellis, and subsequently by conference presentations and seminars.